The Spirit as Personal and Diversely Active

The final piece in my brief argument for God’s causal role in the world builds upon my previous proposals. It emphasizes that God is personal and acts in various ways in the world.

I have argued thus far that God acts as an efficient cause in the world. We cannot perceive the Spirit’s causation with our five senses, because we cannot perceive causation itself. And we cannot perceive with our five senses an immaterial Spirit. God is like the wind Jesus describes in John’s Gospel.

I also argued that God, as Spirit, is present to and influences all entities in the universe – from the most complex to the least. As a necessary cause, the Spirit neither intervenes from the outside nor coerces by acting as sufficient cause. God always acts lovingly.

Personal Means Relational

What I have argued thus far might fit the view that God is an impersonal force field in the universe. This God might be called, to use Paul Tillich’s words, the “ground of being” or “being itself.” It might be what Whitehead early his career called the “principle of concretion.”

I believe Christians can affirm much more.

I affirm the classic Christian view that God is personal. By “personal,” I do not mean the divine Spirit has a localized body similar to humans. My view differs from Mormon views on this matter.

To be personal is both to influence and to be influenced. I believe God both influences others and others influence God. Many theologians call God “relational” to describe this view, because God moves others and others move God.

In short, God gives and receives in relation to others in existence.

God Calls All

In each moment, God causally influences others. In this causal activity, the Spirit calling others to actualize possible ways of being. While God provides all relevant possibilities when influencing creation, God encourages creatures to choose those possibilities that contribute to the good of the whole. In short, God always invites creation to participate in shalom or what Jesus called the Kingdom of God.

Choosing what is good leads to what Jesus calls “eternal life” in John 3:16. “Eternal life” refers more to a high quality of life here and now and less to a large quantity of life in the future.

The forms the Spirit’s calling take are influenced, in part, by what creatures have done in previous moments. God takes into consideration the moment-by-moment actions of all others when deciding how best to encourage creatures to act for the common good. This is part of what it means to say God receives from others when loving.

The Spirit’s calls are influenced by what is possible for each creature, given each creature’s inherent capabilities and external environment. God encourages creatures to actualize possibilities that reflect God’s desire – promoting overall well-being. God invites us to respond in love.

Thy Kingdom Come

The effectiveness of God’s activity hinges upon several factors. One is the appropriateness of creaturely response to God’s calls. God’s persuasive causation is highly effective when creatures respond well.

Positive responses express love, beauty, and truth in their fullest possible expressions, given the circumstances and actors involved. The Kingdom of God is fulfilled, at least in that time and place.

The effectiveness of God’s activity also hinges upon the diverse forms of God’s calls. Complex creatures, given particular circumstances, encounter more sophisticated forms of possibilities than less complex creatures.

The possibilities God offers Mother Teresa, for instance, differ greatly from the possibilities available to a garden worm. And while worms as a whole can greatly influence the good of creation, no single worm has the capacity for goodness (or evil) Mother Teresa enjoys.

In sum, the effectiveness of divine action is determined not only by how well Mother Teresa and the worm respond to God. It also depends on the particular forms — among the possible relevant forms — God encourages creatures to actualize.

The Spirit’s Diverse Activities

Although God offers various possibilities to creatures, God always exerts the greatest influence possible to persuade creatures to act in ways that promote overall well-being. God does not voluntarily decide to be more or less influential. God’s love always runs full-throttle.

The ways God acts in the world, however, are immense. This is no cookie-cutter God. The Spirit presents possibilities for new creation in every moment, to every creature, throughout all time. Not only are God’s mercies “new every morning” (Lam. 3:23), they are new every moment!

The only constraint’s God faces derive from God’s nature, the key attribute of which is love. I described these limitations in terms of lack of coercion earlier. But God cannot do other things that would contradict Godself. God cannot deny himself, to use Paul’s language. The steadfast love of the Lord never changes (Lam. 3:22).

Appreciating the Miraculous

The diversity of effectiveness – along with God’s intentions to promote love – account for the miraculous we see today and reported in Scripture. The miracle of second birth Jesus describes to the scholar in John’s gospel is possible because of God’s loving, diversely formed, efficient causation and appropriate creaturely responses. We can even account for the resurrection of Jesus as an expression of God’s persuasive love.[1]

So-called “natural” miracles can also be appropriately described as God exerting efficient but never coercive causation at various levels of creation. Acts of “special providence” do not involve God totally controlling others. The novel or unexpected form of these events surprise us or strike us as extraordinary, however, as creatures cooperate with God’s causal influence. In these moments, we often readily acknowledge God doing a new thing (Is. 43:19)!

We not only rejoice in the powerfully loving and diverse ways the Spirit acts in the world. We also rejoice when creation responds well to Spirit’s calls – both ordinary and extraordinary – to express love, beauty, and truth.

In such moments, we rightly credit God as the source of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17). And we are right to appreciate the positive responses of creation. In such moments, we see most clearly the abundant life – shalom – Jesus provides!

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[1] For my argument that God uses persuasion rather than coercion in resurrecting Jesus, see The Nature of Love: A Theology (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice, 2010), ch. 5.